Historians applaud LDS-approved book on Mountain Meadows Massacre

The Salt Lake Tribune/May 25, 2007
By Peggy Fletcher Stack

The much-anticipated book by three senior LDS historians about the
Mountain Meadows Massacre is a detailed, thorough exploration of the
horrific crime told in a compelling narrative, but it still omits
crucial contextual elements of the story and certainly won't end all
debate.

That was the conclusion of three historians who have read a version of
Massacre at Mountain Meadows by Ronald Walker, Richard Turley and Glen
Leonard, due out later this year by Oxford University Press. The
critics presented their views before a packed audience Friday at a
session of the Mormon History Association's annual meeting in Salt
Lake City.

The heinous events of Sept. 11, 1857 - during which a group of Mormons
slaughtered 120 Arkansas emigrants crossing through southern Utah,
including men, women and children older than 7 - have been the subject
of books, documentaries and, next month, a major motion picture,
"September Dawn." But Walker's, Turley's and Leonard's forthcoming
volume is the first written with express approval and cooperation of
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The LDS historians have spent the past six years poring over the
church's vast historical holdings as well as documents, journals,
trial records, and court records available in archives from coast to
coast.

"This manuscript rests on a body of evidence that is as factually
complete as historical research is ever likely to make possible," said
Jan Shipps, professor emeritus of American religion and history at
Indiana University/Purdue University at Bloomington, Ind. "Every point
that is made is supported not by a single, but by multiple
references."

For years after the massacre, Mormon participants denied involvement,
blaming it on American Indians. Eventually, parts of the story emerged
in the courtroom and one man, John D. Lee, was executed for his role
in it.

But the questions remained: Was the massacre the work of southern Utah
Mormons run amok, as many Mormons believe, or was it orchestrated by
Brigham Young at church headquarters, as authors such as Will Bagley
argue? Walker and the others were willing to follow the trail wherever
it led, they said, even if it meant laying the blame on Young. But
that's not what they concluded.

"They marshal evidence that directly indicts John D. Lee . . . with
the complicity of his immediate ecclesiastical superior Isaac Haight,"
Shipps said. "With the Lee-Haight duo providing a foundation for local
villainy, these authors moved forward to construct an elaborate
argument that the massacre was essentially a local affair."

Walker et al worked so hard at being objective, Shipps said, that they
neglected the religious aspects the story. They have failed to paint a
backdrop to these events in the decade between 1847, when beleaguered
Mormon pioneers arrived in Utah after being driven from their homes in
the Midwest, and the 1857 massacre.

"It was a point in time in which Mormonism was most religiously
intense - white hot," she said.

Sarah Barringer Gordon, a law professor at the University of
Pennsylvania, said the volume signals "a new openness" on the part of
LDS historians, "a willingness to share dark times with the world."

How courageous it is, she said, "to admit that even Saints in the 19th
century were human in the ugly ways we are all human."

But why was there virtually no mention of polygamy, she wondered.
"Polygamy was vital to the religious revival of mid-1850s Utah
Mormonism."

U.S. President Buchanan may have sent troops to Utah to unseat Young
as territorial leader, but eliminating polygamy was the political
subtext.

"The coverup of the massacre protected polygamists who, of course, had
multiple wives," she said. "Opponents of the Saints connected the open
denials of polygamy before 1852 with the denials after 1857 of
responsibility for the massacre. What else, they said, could you
expect of a bunch of lawless and polygamous fanatics?"

The book is a "page-turner," said Gene Sessions, a history professor
at Weber State University. "Even the footnotes are fun to read."

No matter how thorough, objective or well-written the Mormon book is,
however, it will never be credible with some readers because its
authors are all employed by the church, Sessions said. "Revisionist
historians and those suspicious of the church are not going away."

The authors said they would take all the suggestions into account as
they make their final revisions.

"This is not even the penultimate version," Walker said. "I am
confident we can raise it to the level of something we can be proud
of, something significant."

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